Alliances (Star Wars: Thrawn, #2)(80)

His whole body twitched, his arms loosening but not completely letting go. “Padmé?”

“Yes, Huga,” she confirmed, recognizing his voice now. “I mean it. Let go.”

This time, finally, his arms fell away. Padmé stepped forward and turned around, leveling both her blaster and her glow rod at him. “How was the fishing tonight?” she asked.

His eyes had gone wide, his mouth hanging open. “How did you get in here?” he demanded.

Above her, the trapdoor lid swung open. “Did you get him?” Cimy’s voice came from above.

“Sort of,” Padmé called back.

“Padmé?” Cimy gasped. “But you’re outside.”

“Not anymore,” Huga growled. “LebJau did this, didn’t he? He let you in. Frost that idiot—he’s going to wreck everything.” He jabbed a finger in the direction of their secret exit. “Get out. Now.”

“Not yet,” Padmé said. “I need your help.”

“I don’t care,” Huga bit out. “You need to get out before the metalheads catch you.”

Padmé felt her stomach tighten. So the droids did come down here? “Not yet,” she repeated. She had a sudden inspiration—“Uncle Anakin’s here,” she said. “But he’s in the droid section—”

“He’s here?” Cimy cut her off. “Already? That’s great!”

“Has he got our money?” Huga added.

“Of course,” Padmé said. Anakin was bound to have at least a little money with him. “I just need a couple of things to get in there and get him out.”

“Yeah, but you can’t do that,” Cimy said, his enthusiasm fading. “Get in, I mean.”

“He’s right,” Huga said, eyeing her blaster. “Unless you’re planning on shooting your way in.”

“I think we can come up with something a little more promising,” Padmé assured him. “Where’s LebJau? We can use his help on this.”

“He’s up in the barracks,” Huga said, his voice going suddenly casual. “But we can do this without him.”

In other words, a two-way split of the reward was better than a three-way split? “Fine,” she said. “I’ll need to borrow some clothes from one of the women—these aren’t exactly local,” she added, waving toward her outfit. “Then I’ll need to get hold of one of those wristbands.”

“We don’t have any spares,” Cimy said. “And once they’re off, they don’t go back on.”

“Really,” Padmé said. “How do you know?”

There was a moment of awkward silence. “One of the workers died a few weeks ago,” Cimy said at last. “We thought we could bring someone else in and give them his job. But we couldn’t get the ends to match up right.”

“You couldn’t just glue it?”

“We tried,” Huga said grimly. “The first metalhead who checked it could tell it was stolen. Or maybe that it was on the wrong person—I don’t know which. Beppi tried to run, and it shot him.”

Padmé felt her throat tighten. “I’m sorry.”

“We’ve still got it,” Cimy offered. “They gave us back the body to bury, and we took the wristband. But it’s useless.”

“You think we can take this conversation upstairs?” Huga asked, glancing nervously around. “We’re not supposed to be down here.”

“Certainly,” Padmé said. “You can start by finding me some new clothes. After that, I want to see this useless wristband.”



* * *



—

Anakin had told Thrawn they would wait two hours before breaking out of their cells. In fact, though, practically from the moment Solha and his entourage left he’d been working out how exactly he was going to do that.

Now, with the two hours gone, he was no closer to finding a way than he’d been at the start.

The door was solid. The dowel pins were wedged in, and just outside his view through the door. Without being able to see them he couldn’t get a solid enough grip through the Force to pry them loose. The cell walls seemed old, and for a while he’d hoped he could start at one of the ventilation slits and tear away bits and pieces until he had a hole big enough to squeeze through. But the material had been glazed around the openings, and again he couldn’t get enough of a grip on the edges. The cot was too flimsy to use as a prybar, and too light to make an effective missile.

“Interesting structures,” Thrawn’s voice came from the next cell, echoing oddly off the hard surfaces. “I wonder what they used to store in here.”

“Hadn’t really thought about it,” Anakin said shortly, stretching out a hand toward the door for focus. If he used the Force to pull, and then immediately to push…

No good. A trick like that required a certain amount of slack in the fit, with a chance to build up momentum in one direction before abruptly sending the door in the other. But the fit here was well-nigh perfect, with no more than a millimeter’s worth of give. Not nearly enough.

“The two hours are over.”

“Yes, I know,” Anakin growled back, looking around the cell yet again. Still nothing.